The PES in Action 2007-2009
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The PES in action 2007-2009 Activity Report of the Party of European Socialists Adopted by the 8 th PES Congress Introduction The 7 th PES Congress, held in Porto 7 & 8 December 2006, confirmed and strengthened the new direction the Party of European Socialists was engaged in since the 2004 Congress: building a strong PES, more political, more influential, more visible and more democratic. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was reelected President with that mandate. The Presidency also reelected Philip Cordery as Secretary General and Ruairi Quinn as Treasurer. These 3 years have been an important step for the development of PES. For the 1 st time, the ambition was to prepare the European elections as a true European party. Instead of a Manifesto discussed by a few representatives, we chose the option of having a real bottom-up process in order to integrate in our programme the views of our parties, our members and our voters. For this, the PES launched a broad consultation in the year 2007 and received many contributions from within our member parties but also from many progressive stakeholders. These contributions constituted the basis of our manifesto and enabled our parties and activists to feel ownership in the Manifesto which was finally adopted in our 2008 Madrid Council in the presence of our Leaders and Prime Ministers. Our 2009 European campaign was based on this Manifesto and on strong common campaign elements, thus showing that we were a united political family with a common vision, a common programme, capable with a new majority in the European Parliament of taking Europe in a new direction. People want change. The campaign took place in the midst of one of the deepest financial, economic and social crisis. The neo-liberal system was failing and we, social-democrats and socialists in Europe had an alternative programme to bring this change to the citizens with a strong recovery plan and proposals to regulate financial markets in order to avoid new crises. The PES has acted constantly in these three years to renew our policies, modernize our practices and act as a strong united political family, as it is described in this report. We have influenced the agenda of the European Union as much as possible in a context of conservative majorities in all EU institutions. We have increased our visibility in the European Union and in the member states, campaigning together and developing our strong network of PES activists. We have developed an unprecedented role for European political parties which are becoming full-fledged actors of European politics. Nevertheless, despite this unprecedented preparation, our political family did not win the European elections, nor is it winning national elections, despite encouraging signals like in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia or Norway. We have evaluated these results in an open and frank way and have concluded on the necessity of launching a thorough reflection on how to renew social-democracy, keeping our values but modernizing our policies in order to become again the attractive political force that can represent a hope for the citizens. We have also concluded on the need to continue strengthening the PES and acting more together, increasing our visibility as a united European political family. 2 A. Our political agenda : building a common Manifesto 1. Priorities for the European agenda 2007-2009 saw the PES revitalize its efforts to influence and shape the European agenda through renewed partnership between PES member parties and organisations, PES governments, and stakeholders supportive of social democratic objectives. The PES adopted a three-pronged strategy to consolidate the PES’ political agenda on political priorities of importance to Europe’s people; to increase the influence of the PES; and to strengthen the visibility of the PES. Its five priority themes were New Social Europe; EU political reform; energy and environment; economic governance and reform; and Europe in the world. In 2007 and 2008, the PES set policy priorities to guide its political work. In 2007, these were: • The introduction of a common European energy policy, whose goal should be to promote sustainable development, particularly through a renewed push for greater energy efficiency and renewable energies, including the achievement of the EU’s climate change targets for 2012 and beyond. • Delivering excellence and inclusiveness in education and training to become a key priority for the European Union through fostering closer cooperation with Member States towards a progressive reform of education and training systems and adopting a European reference framework for key competences. • The evaluation of progress towards the 2010 childcare targets and the intensification of EU efforts towards their achievement by 2010, including the systematic assessment of national childcare strategies, the fostering of best practice and considering EU support to stimulate childcare investments. • Appropriate legal frameworks for services of general interest in the European Union, respecting the principle of subsidiarity; • The introduction of an EU strategy for pursuing decent work in the external policies of the European Union. In defining its 2008 policy priorities, PES leaders considered that “the way forward for the European Union from now until the European elections of June 2009 lies in the pursuit of a new progressive, programme for social, environmental and economic reform. In this context, it will be vital to agree on a new treaty in order to achieve our goal of making the European Union more democratic, social, open, transparent, and efficient.” PES leaders therefore defined six priorities: • The European Union should decide on all appropriate measures to establish full transparency, disclosure and accountability – particularly in relation to hedge and private equity funds - in the financial markets. The aim should be to ensure the protection of workers’ rights, collective bargaining, and related social objectives, in accordance with the EU’s Lisbon goals and the principles set out in the New Social Europe, to ensure the future of Europe’s welfare states. An efficient and transparent financial market, including effective financing of long-term investments, is fundamental to our sustainable European companies and their workforces. The EU should also lead calls for the establishment of an international taskforce to examine this question and make all relevant recommendations. • The European Union and its Member States should take the global lead in international negotiations on a post-2012 Kyoto framework, acting as a single voice to achieve a target of 30% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. 3 • The Lisbon Strategy’s policy guidelines should be reviewed to recognise: the use of income policies to reduce income inequalities, in order to distribute better the fruits of growth; the benefits of simultaneous and coordinated investments in Lisbon objectives across the EU; the fight against climate change; the fight against delocalization and social dumping; the objective of full and high quality employment, particularly for young people and women, notably through the elimination of gender inequalities; the need for territorial cohesion; the need to create a system of lifelong learning accessible to all, including pre-school education; the objective of 3% GDP for R&D. • The revision of the Internal Market Strategy should have as a primary objective to improve the benefits of the internal market for Europe’s consumers, ensuring access and affordability in relation to public goods such as energy, and to ensure that the completion of the Internal Market takes place in full respect of the European social model, notably with regards to public services and the public interest. • The European Union should agree on a sustainable and effective migration policy as it has a huge responsibility in ensuring the social, economic, cultural and political integration of migrants, as well as in combating human trafficking and the exploitation of migrants, in order to achieve social cohesion and economic progress. • The European Union should agree on a review of the EU budget – including all policies on which the budget is spent - on the basis of the political ambition to build a New Social Europe, strengthening Europe’s member states in a mutually-reinforcing dynamic of social justice, sustainable economic development, fighting global threats including climate change and achieving the global objective of sustainable development and decent work for all. The PES therefore pursued clearly defined political and policy objectives during this period, coordinating PES members in the EU institutions, setting out clear policy statements and mobilising PES actors and stakeholders in common campaigning in order to influence European decision-making. In order to monitor and disseminate developments in the European policy agenda as well as the PES’ own achievements, the PES began a monthly EU policy brief. 2. EU political reform The PES strongly supported the resolution of the institutional crisis opened up by the French and Dutch “No” votes on the European constitutional treaty. On 24 th March 2007, PES leaders had celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, declaring that if Europe was to tackle its challenges in the 21 st century “we cannot do it without a better treaty, without agreement on the outstanding constitutional and institutional issues. We believe that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights offers a new connection between the citizen and Europe. The PES, together with our national parties and governments, will strive to promote the institutional changes needed in the European treaties as a matter of urgency.” It was the Portuguese socialist government, led by Prime Minister José Sócrates, as holder of the Presidency of the European Union in the latter half of 2007 that successfully concluded negotiations of the new Lisbon Treaty in October 2007, following a meeting of PES Prime Ministers and Deputy Prime Ministers. The Hungarian socialist government, led by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurscany, then went on to become the first government to ratify the Lisbon treaty.